From the Guardian: Chilling discovery: ice house found under London street.

For the well to-do residents of Georgian London, serving chilled drinks at a festive party was a more complicated process than today. In the absence of electricity to make ice cubes and keep them frozen, they had to source their ice from elsewhere.

For the most discerning hosts, that meant using blocks of purest frozen Norwegian fjord, which was shipped to London’s docks and then carefully stored until required to be chipped into glasses and clinked.

Archaeologists have now uncovered a link to the capital’s lost ice trade with the rediscovery, under one of London’s most prestigious addresses, of an enormous 18th-century ice store, the existence of which had been almost entirely forgotten. [continue]